ANC’s land plan points to a frightening future

It is interesting that the ANC can say, with a straight face, what it does on its proposal to radically change the process for land expropriation without compensation (EWC).

Its chair of the parliamentary ad hoc committee on land issues, Dr Mathole Motshekga, said the ANC intended to change the proposed legislation on EWC to allow the executive (that is, the president and the ANC itself) to decide in which cases no compensation would be paid after land was expropriated.

The reason was, he said – without a trace of irony – that the courts were too slow and that the “democratically elected” executive would be able to move quicker to redistribute land.

What, we ask, has the ANC done in the past 26 years to bring about serious land reform? The answer is: very little.

Much of the land the government acquired for redistribution since 1994 – through the willing seller, willing buyer method – has either ended up in the hands of the politically connected, or has gone from being productive and viable to financial collapse.

And that is without the failure of the Land Bank (whose bonds have just been downgraded to “junk” status by international ratings agencies) to promote the interests of black commercial farmers.

The reality is that the ANC wants to ram through EWC and the courts would be an inconvenient stumbling block, because of their irritating tendency to stick to legality.

And, therein, lies the more frightening future for South Africa.

By giving more power to the executive, the ANC goes further down the road of a socialist dictatorship of the people and undermines the constitution.

It will be almost impossible to persuade investors to plough their money into this country when they realise they will have not have protection from the courts.

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